The candid and philosophic temperament of the man is also well exemplified in the conclusion of the same preface. He foresees that “even where my practice has been tried, and its results been recognised, it will be asserted that my statements are anything but new, and that the world has long known them. I have, notwithstanding, never allowed myself to be deterred from communicating the following pages to those of my fellow-creatures who unite the love of truth with the love of their kind. It is my temper and disposition to be careless both of the sayings and the doings of the over-proud and the over-critical. To the wise, however, and the honest, I wish to say this much:—I have in no wise distorted either fact or experiment; I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.... In the meanwhile I ask the pardon, and submit to the arguments, of better judges than myself, for all errors of theory. Perhaps I may myself hereafter on many points change my mind of my own accord. As I have no lack of charity for the errors of others, I have no love of obstinately persisting in my own.” At the outset of his treatise he asserts that a disease is an effort of nature which strives with might and main to restore the health of the patient by the elimination of the morbific matter. Yet he is so far in accord with modern discovery of bacterial germs, that he refers the specific differences between fevers to some unknown constitution of the atmosphere. His wisdom is conspicuous when he says he prefers nothing, on the outbreak of a new fever, to a little delay, and diligently observes the character and cause of the disease, and what kinds of treatment do good or harm. He discerns thoroughly that the scientific working out of the characteristics and phenomena of each disease must be accomplished before it can be asserted that any good work worthy of mention has been got through. It would be difficult to exhibit a more modest and a more truly philosophical spirit than that shown in the following lines at the close of his second chapter: “One thing most especially do I aim at. It is my wish to state how things have gone lately; how they have been in this the city which we live in. The observations of some years form my groundwork. It is thus that I would add my mite, such as it is, towards the foundation of a work that, in my humble judgment, shall be beneficial to the human race. Posterity will complete it, since to them it shall be given to take the full view of the whole cycle of epidemics in their mutual sequences for years yet to come.”